


More like the Air and Sea

by Rei



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rei/pseuds/Rei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of 2x12 Stiles and Lydia bond over tea versus coffee, Derek’s inability to use his words, and being <strike>the squishy humans</strike> the brains of the operation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More like the Air and Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Jonjokeat is a life saver. She did a last minute beta job for me (and when I say last minute – oh boy, I mean last minute) and she was incredibly fast and kind and generally awesome. <333 Everything that sounds good is her doing, and everything else is my mistake. Also lots of love to Keksdiebin who doesn’t even watch or cares about Teen Wolf, but read it anyway just to cheer me on. <3

Title: More like the air and sea  
Author/Artist:  
Prompt: There has been a lot of talk about pack loyalty lately, Stiles thinks, but what about the regular I'll-always-have-your-back-because-you're-my-friend kind? PROMPT #  
Pairing(s): Stiles/Lydia  
Word Count/Art Medium: ~6900  
Rating: PG-13  
Warnings: Some angst, fluff, lots of dialogue. ‘Friend zoning’ is mentioned as a general concept, (but is dismissed as stupid).  
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.  
Author's Notes: Jonjokeat is a life saver. She did a last minute beta job for me (and when I say last minute – oh boy, I mean last minute) and she was incredibly fast and kind and generally awesome. ♥ Everything that sounds good is her doing, and everything else is my mistake. Also lots of love to keksdiebin who doesn’t even watch or cares about Teen Wolf, but read it anyway just to cheer me on. ♥  
Summary: After the events of 2x12 Stiles and Lydia bond over tea versus coffee, Derek’s inability to use his words, and being ~~the squishy humans~~ the brains of the operation. 

 

 _There has been a lot of talk about pack loyalty lately_ , Stiles thinks, _but what about the regular I'll-always-have-your-back-because-you're-my-friend kind?_

He doesn’t really know if he and Lydia even qualify as ‘friends’; after all she didn’t even know he existed a few months ago. But they did save the day together, kind of, and she came to him to ask for help and…it has to mean _something_ , right?

And that’s exactly how he ends up in front of Lydia’s door the day after Jackson is gone.  
Because Derek and Scott are busy negotiating their new-found truce and it’s all werewolf-business all the time, and Stiles feels sore and small and squishy next to all the claws and teeth, super-speed, super strength and super skills.  
He feels so very, very human these days.  
The bruise on his face is almost gone, faded to a soft yellowish color, but his dad still looks at him as if he’s something fragile and breakable and it makes it harder and harder to breathe each day. 

He can’t even imagine how Lydia must feel, watching Jackson die twice in one night and saving the world with her true love, only to lose him again a few days later.  
They don’t exactly make Hallmark cards for something like that. 

“Hey.” He waves a little awkwardly when she opens the door. 

Her make-up is flawless, which is a bad sign in itself. She looks beautiful and tired and she doesn’t smile when she sees him. “What do you want, Stiles?”

“I…brought you coffee?” He holds up a cup and flinches inwardly because ‘ _hello Captain Obvious_ ’, here to state the obvious. 

Lydia just looks at him. 

“Skimmed milk,” he adds quickly. “Soy milk. Skimmed soy milk. And no sugar. Just the way you like it. I mean, it’s just the way you always drink it, so I guess it’s reasonable to assume it is the way you like…” He stumbles through the words and stops mid-sentence. He takes a deep breath. “Sorry. That’s not…that’s not why I came.” 

“Why _did_ you come?”

And that’s a very good question, isn’t it.  
It might look like pity even though it isn’t. He could never pity someone as strong and fierce as Lydia. Or worse, it might look as if he came to take advantage of Jackson’s absence. Like, _Hey, since he’s gone now, would you mind if I…?_

Her eyes narrow, as if that’s exactly what she’s thinking, and he hastens to explain.  
“I just wanted…I mean, we never…and so much happened and I…and you…” he gestures wildly. Coffee sloshes inside the paper cups and he stops himself, before he ends up dousing her. 

She keeps quiet. 

“Are you okay?” he asks. It comes out desperate. 

She shrugs. It’s barely noticeable. “Perfect.”

Sure, she is. She always is.  
He can relate though. He’s always fine. Just fine, because he’s only Stiles.  
But she’s Lydia Martin and a goddess and of course she can’t ever be anything but perfect. 

“Okay,” he says and he means it. 

She looks at him and her hand still hovers on the doorknob, cautious and slightly wary as if she is still prepared to slam the door in his face. Metaphorically and literally. He probably should do something or say something, but he doesn’t. He has a feeling he’s only going to make it worse if he tries. 

After minutes of awkward silence that feel like hours he sighs, defeated. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I just…You know what, I’ll just go now.” He turns around.

“I don’t like coffee that much,” she says. 

That makes him pause.  
He frowns, because he’s pretty sure he has only ever seen her drink coffee. But then again…Lydia does a lot of things just because it’s expected. Or because of Jackson.  
It’s funny because he (and probably everybody else, too) has always assumed that it was her calling the shots in their relationship, with Jackson pretty much doing whatever she wants. But of course things are always more complicated than they seem.  
And Lydia…Lydia does a lot of things _because_. 

“Okay,” he says again. “I’m sorry I got it wrong. You know what, it’s cool. I wanted to have two coffees anyway. Actually I love skimmed soy milk. You can’t ever have enough skimmed soy milk in your coffee and…but we’re not talking about me. Or soy milk. Because why would we? Who talks about soy milk? I just…what…I mean…what _DO_ you like?”

Belatedly he realizes he must be the first person ever to ask her that, because her face softens involuntary. 

“To drink,” he clarifies. “Or, you know, whatever. What do you like?” 

Her lips twitch. It’s barely visible, but it’s there and it makes Stiles feel all warm and soft inside as if he has drunk a whole cup of something hot and sweet. “I like tea,” she says and it sounds as if it’s the first time she has told anybody. 

“Really? That’s totally awesome, because I…,” he stops himself just in time. “No. Wait. Actually I have absolutely no clue about tea. Except, well…my dad makes me drink chamomile tea when I’m sick.” 

“And you hate it.” 

“I…yeah. Totally.” 

This time she actually smiles a little. “I prefer black tea.”

“What kind?”

And that’s how it begins.  
It’s such a small thing. Knowing how Lydia prefers her tea – Earl Grey, one sugar and milk, very British, thank you very much - but it loosens something between them, like a rope that has been all tangled up and knotted way too tight. 

He starts to buy her tea, the really expensive loose leaf tea that smells like bergamot and spices and is as British as if the queen herself had bagged it. He’s still not sure if he likes drinking it, but it does smell really nice.  
In return she buys him vanilla cupcake latte macchiato with semi-skimmed milk, which is creepy, because that’s exactly how he likes it, except he has never told anybody.  
Just Scott, but it’s not as if he’s been going around telling people.

( _“Dude, did you talk to Lydia about my coffee drinking habits lately?”_

_“What?”_

_“Come on, you know what I mean.”_

_“You mean, your…dirty little froufrou coffee-secret?”_

_“Dude!”_

_“No man, I didn’t. I pinky-swore!”_ )

Sometimes they talk.  
They don’t talk about Jackson, because whenever someone mentions him Lydia’s whole face becomes tight and _hurt_ and she puts on a terrible, painfully fake smile that Stiles honestly never wants to see again.  
They do talk about werewolves though. 

He wasn’t sure if she would even want to and how she would take it, but again she surprises him.  
Lydia wants to know literally _everything_. It’s like she’s starved for the truth and it makes Stiles feel even more guilty for all the times one of them lied to her about what was going on.  
At the same time it’s completely _awesome_ to finally have someone to talk to about it. Someone who not only _understands_ everything he’s saying, but actually asks all the smart questions. Seriously, it makes Stiles want to cry. 

 

\- 

She’s in his room when Derek climbs through his window one night. 

“I need you to research…,” he starts and stops abruptly when he sees Lydia. “What is she doing here?” he asks flatly.

“Uhm, we just…”

“ _She_ can talk for herself,” Lydia says, spinning lazily in Stiles’ office chair. 

Derek growls.  
Lydia raises a challenging eyebrow at him. 

“Uhm…it’s okay,” Stiles say quickly, because he isn’t keen on getting blood spilled on his carpet (he might not like Derek very much, but he totally doesn’t need to see him dismembered). “You can say it in front of her. She knows everything anyway.” 

Derek makes his frowny face, as if he’s not happy at all about all the non-werewolf people invading his life, but _seriously_ , Stiles thinks. No reason to become all werewolf-supremacist about it.  
“So, what did you want?” 

“The Alpha pack,” Derek says. 

Stiles waits. Derek makes some complicated movements with his eyebrows that look like some kind of interpretative dance.  
“Yeah,” Stiles says slowly. “No. You actually need to use your words. You know? That thing where your words form an actual question?” 

Derek growls again, red flashing in his eyes. “Just find out as much as you can about them,” he orders, even though it obviously pains him to not just threaten Stiles into submission.

“That’s not really how this works. We are going to need a little bit more information than that,” Lydia says and Stiles swivels towards her so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. Not because she talked back to Derek, but because she said ‘ _we_ ’. As in her and Stiles. 

“What else do you need?” Derek barks, clearly frustrated. 

Lydia sighs. “Where have they been seen? What did they do? Did they communicate in any way with you? Leave signs? Threats? Symbols?” she lists. “How many are there? Is there anything else you know about them?” 

“I…no. Yes.” 

Stiles throws her a look that clearly communicates ‘ _See, how_ hard _my life is?_ ’ and Lydia rolls her eyes. 

 

-

“Are you sure?” he asks later when Derek has vanished and they’re alone again. 

They have swapped places, because he needs his desk and his computer more than Lydia does. She sits on his bed, reading, something old and dusty and written in archaic Latin that he can’t even begin to comprehend. “About what?” She doesn’t look up. 

He shrugs awkwardly. “You know…it’s not going to be just research and reading about stuff. Once they start asking you about stuff, they’ll expect you to crawl around in the woods, too.”  
It’s not what he actually wants to say. But it’s close enough. 

“I’m aware of that.” 

“It’s going to be dirty,” he says slowly. “Wet. Cold. And at night.” It’s going to hurt, he thinks and he remembers lying on the cold hard floor in the police station, unable to move, unable to scream, watching Matt knocking his father out. 

She frowns at him. “Why does everyone assume I’m allergic to dirt? I spent two days running around in the woods, _naked_ and I survived just fine. It’s not that hard.”

“That’s not…it.” He sighs. “Once you let all the supernatural mumbo jumbo into your life, it’s not going to disappear again. It’s going to be there. Like, _all_ the time. It’s going to be there whether you want it to or not.” 

“Stiles? Is there an actual question in there or are you just forming words to hear the sound of your own voice?”  
The light from his bedside lamp casts stark shadows on her, making her strawberry blond hair look dark red. It makes his stomach churn. 

He licks his lips, not sure how to continue without sounding patronizing. “Do you really want to get involved?” he asks softly. “In all this?” 

“I thought I already was involved.” It sounds defensive. 

“You are. You are! But…”  
He stops right there, not sure what to say anymore. Not sure how to tell her how lonely it is on the sidelines where you get singled out and kidnapped and _hurt_ just for being the squishy human in a pack of wolves. How you don’t even get any of the fun stuff, like being stronger and faster and just _better at everything_ ; you only get the terrible stuff, like being scared and helpless, running for your life and watching horrible things happen to your family and friends, unable to stop it.  
How you can’t ever talk to anybody about it and how all the lies and secrets start piling up until they threaten to swallow you whole, and you can’t even look your father in the eye anymore. 

“It’s not…always fun,” he says lamely. 

This time she does raise her head. “Then why do _you_ do it?”

“I just…I just want to help.” 

“No you don’t.”

“What?” he asks, stunned.  
Suddenly angry, he leaps to his feet. “I…yes, of course I want to help! You have no idea what it feels like! To know that things are out there that want to _hurt_ my dad and Scott and the others! It’s scary and terrible and I would do anything to make sure they’re safe! And I _don’t have_ claws or fangs and I don’t have cool superpowers, so I can’t exactly go around beating up bad boys. Research is the only thing I can do! And if reading old books and spending my nights on the computer helps to keep them safe, then I’m sure as hell going to do it!”

“You want to feel useful,” she says when he runs out of air halfway through his rant. 

“No. I…I don’t know…yes. Maybe. _I don’t know._ ” He runs a hand across the back of his head. “Isn’t that the same thing, basically?” 

She shrugs. “Not really.” 

“Okay. So, I want to feel useful. I want to not feel scared and useless all the time. I want to…be able to do stuff. I want to be able to help people.”

“Is it so hard to believe that I want exactly the same thing?” she says quietly. 

“You…”  
He pauses, because no. No, it isn’t.  
Feeling scared and useless and kept out of the loop is probably exactly how she spent the whole of last year.  
If he hadn’t already felt really bad about keeping her in the dark, he would start now.  
He sits down next to her on the edge of his bed. 

“I know it’s not all fun and games,” she continues. “I’ve been there, okay? I’ve been there when they slashed Jackson wide open, because he was _killing_ people.” It’s the first time she has even mentioned his name since he’s been gone and she looks as surprised as Stiles feels. She swallows quickly and averts her eyes. “But _not_ knowing what’s going on…not being able to do _anything_ to stop it, that is way worse. Once you know it, you can’t unknow it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, feeling completely, utterly terrible.

“Yes.” she says calmly. “You should be.” 

“I just want to…”

She makes a noise, that’s probably meant to be a laugh, but it sounds choked and angry. “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘ _to protect you_ ’ or any version thereof, I’m going to neuter you.”

“I…okay, I totally do,” he admits. “And I’m sorry about that, too?”

“Oh my God, Stiles! _Nobody_ wants to be protected. How would _you_ feel if Scott was all, ‘ _oh no it’s too dangerous, I don’t want you to be involved, I just want to protect you_ ,’ all of a sudden and he wouldn’t tell you anything anymore?” 

Stiles closes his mouth. Eventually he settles for a meek, “Oh.” 

“Yes, ‘oh’! Nobody wants to be sheltered like that because it makes them feel pathetic and useless and most of all it makes them feel _so_ lonely, because everybody else is in on it. And I don’t deserve to feel that way. Nobody deserves to feel that way. People want to be able to protect themselves. People want to be able to protect others. People want to feel useful and strong and capable. How do you _NOT_ know this?”

He groans and buries his head in his hands. “Because I’m a terrible person and a horrible friend and you should totally neuter me, so I can never ever pass my genes on to some helpless kid?”

This time she actually laughs. "Now you're exaggerating. You're not _that_ bad."

“Okay,” he says, still sounding small. 

She slides a little closer to him. Stiles can pinpoint the exact point where their elbows touch. It’s warm and strangely comforting. He really wants to touch her right now, just something small and childlike, like holding her hand, but he doesn’t dare. 

“We’re in this together now,” she says softly. “Don’t forget that.” 

“Squishy humans,” he whispers. 

“No.” She shakes her head. “We’re the brains of the operation. And they better treat us like that.” 

Stiles is pretty sure that it’s going to take Derek and the others a while to see it like that. He’s also pretty sure that Lydia will be able to do a much a better job of convincing people to treat her right than he ever will. 

 

\- 

“Dude. What’s going on with you and Lydia?” Scott asks a few weeks later. 

“What? Why?” Stiles’ voice sounds muffled and he hastily swallows down his fries.

“Isaac told me that Derek told him that you two have been hanging out. And that she’s been helping with the research?” 

“Oh my god.” Stiles shoots him a dirty look. “Werewolves are total gossipers. I’m not as surprised as I probably should be. What’s next? Did Isaac tell you that Derek told him that Boyd mentioned that he thought I have great hair?” 

Scott looks hurt. “But why did you tell _Derek_ and not me? I thought I was your best friend.” 

“Okay, slow down. Creepily enough, this is beginning to sound like an actual episode of Gossip Girl. First of all – I didn’t _tell_ Derek anything. He just keeps showing up! In my room! At night. Completely uninvited.”

“And that’s when he saw you and Lydia?”

“Yes!”

Scott looks unimpressed. “Well, what was she doing in your room? At night?” 

Stiles opens and closes his mouth, probably looking like a stranded fish. Dammit. Scott isn’t supposed to be the smart one. That’s not okay. “Yeah well…that’s…she…I mean…”

Scott uses Stiles’ momentary state of distraction to steal some of his curly fries. Stiles frowns and draws his food closer to his chest. “You have your own fries!”

“Yours taste better.” Scott shrugs, unconcerned. 

“Is this some kind of deep seated werewolf instinct to _hunt down_ your food? If yes, I have to tell you that…”

“Are you changing the subject?” 

Stiles pauses. “…no?”

“Stiles.” And here we go again. Why does he have to use the puppy dog eyes? That’s so not fair. Stiles can’t do anything against the puppy dog eyes. 

Stiles sighs and rubs a hand across his face. It’s not as if he has kept it from Scott on purpose. It just never came up until now.  
And it’s not even that big a thing.  
“Look…there’s nothing going on. Absolutely nothing. We are just hanging out. As friends. Sometimes at night, because…” he pauses and licks his lips. “She never says anything, but I think she’s not doing so great at the moment. Ever since Jackson…you know?”

Scott nods and for a second he looks sad and vulnerable and Stiles knows that he’s thinking of Allison. “Yeah. I know.”  
And Stiles wants to say all kinds of things, stupid, hopeful things, like ‘ _maybe one day we can go on a double date together, like we did back then, when we went ice skating_ ’ and ‘ _maybe when Allison comes back you can talk about everything_ ’ and ‘ _maybe one day Lydia will stop looking hurt whenever someone mentions Jackson_ ’, but he doesn’t.  
Because there are only so many _maybes_ he can stand. 

Stiles pats him a little awkwardly on the shoulder, and he subtly pushes the rest of his fries in Scott’s direction. He pretends not to notice how Scott starts stealing them again. 

After that it becomes kind of a thing - Stiles and Lydia hanging out together - and nobody questions it anymore or looks at Stiles funny. Not that too many people were ever interested in Stiles’ personal business in the first place, but well.  
Even Derek starts to say ‘ _Stiles and the Martin girl can look it up…_ ’ or ‘ _stay out of the woods, are you crazy? Lydia, tell him…_ ’ and Lydia says ‘ _oh please shut up, Derek, we got this. You wouldn’t even know where to start without us_ ’ and Derek rolls his eyes and lets her get away with it.  
It starts to feel familiar and comfortable and it’s nice. 

They are the brains of the operation and that’s totally okay with him. Stiles has always liked the brains best anyway. 

 

\- 

“What are you doing Friday evening?” 

Stiles surfaces out of his locker, balancing his chemistry book in one hand and a half eaten sandwich in the other. “Testing how many M&Ms I can fit into my mouth at once, preferably without choking. For science.” 

“Your life is terrible,” Lydia says, disgusted and clearly judgmental, before she turns around and states, “We are going out.”

“We are?” Stiles hastily follows her, tripping over his own feet and flailing like an idiot. “What. What?”  
Because if this is going to be a date, he needs to know in advance so he can react appropriately and _she needs to prepare him for announcements like that, okay?_ Jesus Christ.

“We’re going out with Danny,” Lydia clarifies. “We need to talk to him.” 

“Is this going to be about fashion advice? Because I don’t know what you two have against plaid, but it’s mean and insulting to imply…”

“It’s not about fashion.” Lydia frowns. “We are going to tell him the truth. About werewolves.” 

“What? Why?”

“Because I would like to stay friends with him. Especially considering he’s one of maybe three people in this town who don’t think I’m a total whack job. And I can’t stay friends with him if I have to keep lying to him all the time.”  
She doesn’t say ‘ _like you lied to me_ ’, but she doesn’t need to, since it’s clearly implied. Stiles flinches. 

Lydia sighs. To his surprise she walks a little bit closer to him and links arms with him.  
In public. In the school hallway. Where everybody can see them. Walking together. With their arms linked.  
Stiles realizes it should totally freak him out, because this has never happened to him before ( _andholyfuckingshitOMGLydiaMartinistouchinghim!_ ), but strangely enough it doesn’t. It’s nice.  
And not for the first time he thinks that being ‘just friends’ with a beautiful girl isn’t as terrible as guys keep telling each other it is in all the locker rooms of the world. Especially when the girl in question is Lydia. 

“Okay, I get that. We need to talk to Scott or Derek first, though,” he says. “You can’t just out people behind their backs and against their will. Danny of all people would understand that.”

Lydia nods thoughtfully. “I guess.” 

“I don’t think they would be opposed to it though. I mean Scott loves Danny and Derek…well. Not that he actually likes anybody much, but you know.” Stiles gestures vaguely. “He’s…improving?” 

“Everybody loves Danny! He is smart and reasonable and fun to be around,” Lydia lists. “Derek could offer him the bite if he wanted to. You know, if he’s not _totally opposed_ to having sane and non-traumatized people in his pack. And even if Danny doesn’t want to become a werewolf, it would be nice to have him in the know. You guys seriously need all the help you can get.” 

Stiles can’t exactly argue against that, not with Scott’s and Derek’s horrible track record of almost dying and being in a perpetual state of mortal peril.

They talk to Danny a few days later, which works out way better than Stiles had expected, mainly because Danny isn’t the slightest bit surprised. Apparently he has known (or guessed) for a while now. 

“I had already dismissed drugs, religious cults, human trafficking and vampires,” he confides over the loud music. 

“You did?” Stiles asks, surprised.

Danny winks at him. He’s balancing a beer in one hand and stowing away some guy’s number in the back pocket of his jeans with the other. (And seriously, Stiles wants to be like Danny. It’s, like, _everything_ he aspires to in life, because how can you be so smooth and popular and _so nice_ all at the same time?) “Yeah well, none of it really explained all the talk of the ‘full moon’ and ‘wolfsbane’ and ‘hunters’, I overheard in the locker room.” 

Stiles blushes at that and Lydia sighs long-sufferingly. She sips at her mocktail which is bright pink and smells sweet and fruity. “This must be the worst kept secret in the history of Beacon Hills. You all suck at this.”

“I keep telling Scott we have to use code phrases,” Stiles says. “‘ _The Eagle has landed._ ’ ‘ _The cat has meowed_ ’. ‘ _Batman has spoken_?’ ‘ _The banana got peeled._ ’”

“Because _that’s_ way less suspicious.” Lydia rolls her eyes, but the smile that’s tugging at her lips looks almost fond. 

“Also, none of them make sense, except the last one which sounds like a really terrible euphemism,” Danny adds. 

After that Danny seems looser somehow, his shoulders relaxing for the first time since Jackson left. He smiles a lot and he makes Lydia promise that she won’t let him go home with ‘ _you know who_ ’ (Stiles doesn’t) no matter how much he has drunk, before he vanishes into the crowd, his dark head bobbing up and down. 

Stiles spends half an hour talking to Miss Violet and Cleo LeValle about Lacrosse (they used to play for Beacon Hills, too, who knew!), before all of a sudden he gets dragged off to the dance floor by Lydia.  
He throws her a questioning gaze when she puts her arms around his neck and starts swaying slowly, completely ignoring the up tempo pop song that’s currently playing. 

“Some guys were looking at you,” she says as an explanation, her hand curled around his neck almost protectively. 

“At me?” Stiles waggles his eyebrows, suggestively. “You’re joking, right?” 

She snorts. “Oh believe me, they were totally checking you out. I’ve been here with Jackson before. I _know_ how it looks when a guy gets checked out.” 

“Creepy guys? Or nice guys?” he asks, disbelieving. “Like Danny-nice?”

“Both.”

He cranes his neck to get a better view of the ominous guys she’s talking about, but she puts a hand on his chin and pulls his face toward her. “Don’t worry,” she says quietly. “I’ll protect you from the creeps and I’ll collect all the numbers of nice looking guys. If you want me to, that is. I’ve done it for Danny before.”

He wants to laugh, but then doesn’t.  
She is serious, he realizes with a start. She’s actually serious about hot guys checking him out, as if he’s something desirable in any way shape or form and not a complete spaz. And yes, Stiles is the first to admit that he has always been a little bi-curious (because really, there are some pretty hot guys running around in Beacon Hills), but right now, he just doesn’t care. Not about the guys and not about any of the other girls.  
Lydia’s face is close enough to his that he’d be able to count her freckles if he wanted to, barely visible beneath the make-up, and he can distinguish every single, perfectly curled eyelash. 

“No,” he says softly. “Thanks, but no thanks.” 

Her eyes flicker over his face, searching for…something. “Are you sure about that? Some of them look pretty good. Nice abs.”

“Yeah, I bet.” As carefully as if she’s made of tissue paper about to crumble beneath his fingers, he places his arms around her waist. They move slowly, swaying to an imaginary melody and completely ignoring the fast beats of the music and the bouncing people around them.  
“I’m sure,” he says. “I’m completely fine. Right here. With you. If that’s…if that’s okay with you.”

A smile is tugging at the corners of her mouth, small and soft and completely non-sarcastic.  
“I’m good. Here,” she adds, “…with you. Dancing completely out of time.”

He bursts out laughing. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She shrugs. “I like it.” 

“It’s better that way, believe me. Any faster than this and I’ll lose control over my limbs and something terrible will happen. You won’t want to be there for that.”

“I’m officially terrified now.”  
She’s soft and warm in his arms and she smells like red fruits and sunlight. Her fine strawberry blonde hair tickles the bare skin of his throat when she leans forward, gently placing her head on his shoulder. Sometimes he forgets how much smaller she is, even wearing _ten_ inch heels. She always seems so much taller, her colors brighter and much more vivid than anybody else’s. 

“You said ‘Jackson,’” he says all of a sudden, barely preventing himself from stumbling over his own feet. “You said you’ve been here with Jackson before.” 

“What?” She raises an eyebrow, looking confused.

“Nothing. Just…” He shrugs, cursing his brain-to-mouth-filter that never seems to work. Why would he even bring that up right now? 

She looks thoughtful for a second, surprised, but not as if it pains her to even think about him which is a first. Eventually she raises her chin. “I did.” It sounds challenging. 

There’s something warm and tingly unfolding in his stomach, like a blanket made of butterflies. Butterflies on Adderall, carrying vibrating cell phones. And he really needs to stop using that metaphor. 

“Okay,” he says quietly.  
There’s something in the air between them that makes him feel strangely unreal and very soft. Squishy and breakable. As if she could crumble him between her fingertips if she wanted. Strangely that doesn’t even scare him as much as it probably should.  
There’s something in her face that makes him think maybe…maybe that’s exactly how she feels right now. As if she has let him see something of her, something personal and vulnerable, and he could use it to hurt her if he wanted. 

And he remembers all the times he has witnessed her being cruel and callous towards Jackson.  
Stiles has spent years convincing himself that she treated him like that, because she actually didn’t care about him. And it’s only recently that he has realized it has always been the exact opposite.  
It was only ever because Lydia cared _too much_ about him and she didn’t want him to have that kind of power over her. 

And it would be so easy to just lean forward now and close the gap between them and kiss her on the lips. She would let him, he knows. Right then and there he knows. Because Stiles isn’t stupid. She has been sending signals to him all night and he just hasn’t realized it until now. 

But love is knowing where the bullets are and never loading the gun. 

And she’s vulnerable right now, soft and breakable, cracked wide open and she’s still not over Jackson and…it’s not okay. 

“We should go and save Danny,” he suggests, and gently disentangles his hands from her hips. Instead he offers her his arm, like a gentleman. “Oily-and-muscled is still talking to him and Danny looks bored out of his mind.” 

For a split second something like surprise flickers across her face, but it vanishes as fast as it had appeared. She reaches for his arm and smiles at him. She looks thankful. “Sure, let’s save the day. We’ve been doing that an awful lot lately.” 

“That’s because we rock.” 

She sniffs and flicks her hair back over her shoulder. “We do.” 

 

\- 

“I think I may have found something,” Lydia says two days later. She waves him over to her laptop and points at the screen with her pen. 

They haven’t talked about the dance like at all, but that’s really fine with Stiles because whenever he does think about it, he freaks out. 

“Is this about the fairies?” he asks instead. 

“No, it’s about Santa Claus.” She rolls her eyes. “Of course it’s about the fairies.”

“Do I have to pretend the little lines and dots mean anything to me?” he stage-whispers as he leans over her shoulder to get a closer look at the screen. 

She rolls her eyes. “It’s an algorithm, based on the places they have appeared so far and the people they’ve interacted with. It doesn’t explain _why_ they are here or what they’re going to do next, but I think it might be able to predict the places they’re going to show up next.” 

“Oh. Ooooh!” His eyes widen. “I see what you mean.” 

She grins. “Isn’t it what your dad always says? One is an incident, two is a coincidence and three is a pattern. I guess we found our pattern.” 

He shakes his head, still amazed by Lydia’s skills. “You found it.”

She frowns and stops typing. “Don’t be silly. You were the one who brought all the valuable data points to my attention.” 

“I didn’t really…”

“Stiles.” There’s something in her voice that makes him pause. “You’re always doing this.” 

“Doing what?” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“I really don’t.” 

She sighs and spins her chair around until she’s facing him. “Stop selling yourself short. It’s annoying. You are one of the smartest people I know.” 

“I’m not…I mean…I’m not as smart as you. Everyone knows that.”

“Yes, I’m book smart. I get good grades. I _know_ stuff. But you…you _understand_ stuff. You’re stupidly brave,” she keeps listing as if he hadn’t said anything. “And you have great intuition and you _see_ things.” 

“What things?” 

This time she swallows and the curves of her mouth look tight and upset. “Things other people don’t see.” She shakes her head, before he can answer that. “Just stop pretending you’re an idiot when you’re clearly not.”

Somehow Stiles gets the vague feeling they’re not talking about fairies anymore. 

 

\- 

Lydia’s predictions (‘ _Calculations! It’s simple math, it’s not that hard!_ ’) prove to be correct, surprising absolutely no one. The next time the fairies appear they have a head start.  
The werewolves are out in the woods hunting them down, Danny has everybody connected via some nifty ear-pieces and some high tech stuff and Stiles and Lydia are sitting in her car, like a pair of especially awesome undercover cops.  
They did some spells (mainly protection, because Stiles honestly doesn’t dare to use anything more aggressive) and threw around some magic fairy dust and now they wait. 

They share a cup of tea, because Lydia does everything with style, even waiting in her car in the middle of the night for a bunch of homicidal fairies to show up.  
Stiles laughs. 

“What?” 

“I…nothing.” He tries unsuccessfully to hide his grin behind the cup. 

She raises her eyebrows and then takes it from his hands. 

“It’s just…sometimes I wonder how this is my life,” he admits. “I mean, what the hell is going on?” 

For a second she just stares at him, unimpressed, and then a slow smile starts to spread across her face. “I know.” 

“Fairies.” He’s probably grinning like a maniac, right now. 

“Werewolves chasing fairies,” she adds. 

“In danger of getting dismembered by angry fairies.” 

“Mountain aaash,” she imitates Gerard. Then she clasps a hand over her mouth as if she can’t believe she just did that. Stiles bursts out laughing.

“Yeah,” he says when they eventually calm down again. “Like that’s ever going to stop being funny.” 

They are quiet for a while. It’s a comforting silence, warm and easy. Stiles leans against the window and watches her sipping tea and he’s more calm and more relaxed than he has any right to be considering they’re in immediate danger of getting ripped apart by angry fairies. Well, any minute now. 

“I’m sorry,” she says completely out of the blue.

“What for?” he asks, surprised.

“The prom.” She exhales. “I never got around to saying this, because afterwards everything went kind of crazy, but…you were being so nice to me. And I guess I pretty much ruined it for you.” 

“What? No. No, you didn’t. Don’t say that.” He frowns. “What the hell brought that on?” 

She shrugs. “The song. The song that was playing when we were dancing. You were humming it.” 

“I…what son-…oh.” He feels a blush spreading across his neck and cheeks. “I was?”

A strange emotion flickers across her face, something hesitant. “You do it all the time.” 

_Your eyes, your eyes tell me everything.  
The first, the last and in between, that's everything._

“I…what?” He can feel himself blanch. “What? Oh my god…shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize…” 

“It’s okay. It’s a nice song.” 

Of course he is humming _that_ song. Of course. 

_You're not just a girl, you're more like the air and sea.  
I want you so desperately and nothing's gonna keep us apart._

Stiles wants to bash his head against the dashboard repeatedly, because ugh. Way to be a.) obnoxious and b.) absolutely completely obviously hopelessly in love with Lydia Martin.  
He sighs. 

“Look…” he runs his tongue across his suddenly dry lips. “If it’s any consolation? It was still the best prom I ever thought I would have. Well, not the part where a crazy psycho werewolf attacked us, obviously…but everything else? That you actually went to the dance with me? That was _awesome_.”

“It was kind of nice, I guess.” She smiles and puts the tea down between them. 

“And I swear to god, Allison only told me afterwards she was blackmailing you. I honestly thought she would just…you know, ask you.”

The corners of her mouth twitch. “She didn’t have to blackmail me. Much.” 

“That’s comforting.”

“I like dancing with you.” 

“Yeah, me t-…” He can’t finish the sentence, because all of a sudden Lydia is right in front of him and her lips are on his. Stiles feels his eyes going wide. 

He’s still staring at her when she slowly backs away, looking questioning and somewhat shy all at once.  
“Please say I didn’t read you wrong the whole time,” she says, almost desperately. 

Is he dreaming? He must be dreaming. This must be the fairy dust…mountain ash…he’s clearly hallucinating… 

“Stiles! Did I misinterpret something?” 

“You…no, you didn’t,” he manages to gasp. He feels strangely lightheaded and his chest is tight. 

“Stiles? Stiles.” Her hands frame his face. “Keep breathing.” 

“I’m…sorry?” 

“No, it…shit. Keep breathing, okay? You’re hyperventilating.” 

He breathes in and out and doesn’t dare to blink or avert his eyes because he’s afraid she’s going to vanish if he stops looking at her. “You…but…did you just…?” 

She nods. 

“You don’t have to,” he says desperately. Because Lydia does a lot of things because she thinks she’s supposed to do them, like drinking coffee and going out with quarterbacks and pretending to be an airhead. And he can survive a lot, Stiles knows he can, but he isn’t sure if he could survive Lydia pretending to be interested, just for his sake. “I would never…” 

“I know. I want to,” she says simply. _Simply_. As if any of this has ever been simple. 

“But…why now…why…?” 

“Because we might be killed by angry fairies any moment now.” 

Stiles blinks up at her. “What?” 

Her fingers are still on his face, warm and soft, but strangely determined.  
“I’ve kissed a lot of guys I didn’t even like,” she says. “And I kissed a guy who broke my heart more than once, but I never kissed you. And that’s not okay, because I…” she stops and swallows. “I like you a lot more than I like anybody else. I think I like you more than I ever liked Jackson. And I mean I loved him, but I’m not sure I ever really… _liked_ him. You are the first guy who’s also my friend, you know? I never…I never had that. And I want you to be my friend. But I also want to kiss you. For weeks now. And I don’t think they should be mutually exclusive.”

Her eyes are bright as if she’s close to tears, but her voice is calm and sure and confident. Stiles’ blood pulsates hot through his veins and he feels simultaneously lighter and more grounded than he ever did before. He tries to say something, but she stops him before he gets the chance. 

“The last year has been crazy. I’ve been mind-controlled and manipulated, and at times I thought I would go out of my mind. And the thing is, nothing ever gets less crazy, but it’s just so much easier when I’m with you. Sometimes when I look at you…” She takes a deep breath. “You are the only thing that makes sense anymore.”

“Lydia.” She stops. Stiles smiles at her, a little wobbly. “You had me at ‘killed by angry fairies’. And to be honest – you _always_ had me.”

This time he kisses her for real. Her lips are soft and pliant and she smiles into his kiss. 

A wolf howl has them breaking apart. Stiles is grinning stupidly and Lydia looks pleasantly flushed. 

“That was the signal,” he states rather unnecessarily. 

“I know.”

“Damn.”

“I know.” 

“Uhm…that was really sweet,” Danny’s voice comes in over his ear-piece. “Really, really sweet actually. And how nice of you to share it with me. I’m going to bleach my brain now. But you guys might want to concentrate on the angry fairies and go check that out.”

“We should do that more often,” Lydia whispers and presses a quick kiss to his lips. 

“Angry fairies?” he asks breathlessly. 

“Not that.” 

“I like where this is going.” 

“Then let’s not die tonight,” she orders quietly. 

“No dying, got it. And Lydia?”

“Yes?”

“You are amazing.” 

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> The song lyrics (and the title) are from She wants Revenge: "Not just a girl" - the song that's playing during 1x11 when Stiles and Lydia dance together.


End file.
